Policy -If I Ran the Zoo: Quality Measures in
Accountable Care and the Fit with Integrative Health and Medicine
-HHS Corrects FAQ on 2706/Non-Discrimination:
IHPC's Traub Calls It a Victory
-North Dakota Becomes 45th State
to Regulate Acupuncturists

New licensing in Maryland

-Maryland Becomes 29th
State to Regulate Direct-Entry MidwivesResearch
Advances
-Systematic Survey of
Naturopathic Whole Practice Research Published
-"To
Pause and Protect" - Mindful Police Work Featured at Oregon Collaborative for
Integrative Medicine SPARC Research ConferenceIntegrative
Services
-Casey Health Institute:
Marrying Integrative Health and Values-Based Medicine
-Quick
Links to Integrative Medicine News in Medical Systems and Communities: May 2015Integrative Academics
-University of Western States in Partnership with
Veteran's Group for Chiropractic, Functional Medicine and Massage Services
-Puerto Rico's University of Turabo the 8th
Naturopathic Program to Gain Federal Recognition
-Midwifery Education Accreditation Council Seeks Executive
DirectorOrganization and Professions
-Ryan
Cliche, MBA, FAE Named Executive Director of the American Association of
Naturopathic Physicians
-AAAOM
Creates Three New Committees in Additional Priority Areas
-F4CP and the IAYT/Yoga Therapy Version of Five Stages of
Professional Development

The
four panelists were David Fogel, MD,
with the Casey Health Institute (featured in Integrative Services, below); Regina
Dehen, ND, LAc, chief medical officer at National College of Natural
Medicine where she is leading efforts to turn the naturopathic primary care in
that teaching clinic into a Level 3 PCMH (patient centered medical home);
pioneering integrative medicine doctor, homeopath and health system quality
leader Molly
Punzo, MD; and James
Whedon, DC, MS, now with Southern California University in health services
research and until recently part of the health services team associated with
the Dartmouth accountable care group. The webinar is posted here.

Comment: Fascinating topic where the
rubber of integration meets the road increasingly traveled by the best in
conventional medicine. A taste of the topic: conventional measures may
specifically ask clinicians to document use of cholesterol lowering drugs.
Might functional outcomes or lifestyle measures be more appropriate? In a health-focus
system, what do we need to be measuring? Will naturopathic medicine and other
integrative care be corrupted, somehow, if it submits to regular medicine
measures? There will be a good Q& A segment. Take a listen!

In a note to colleagues, Michael
Traub, ND, DHANP, CCH, FABNO, the lead on
Section 2706 for the Integrative
Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), offers the
following key points. First, while Section 2706 may not apply to Medicare, it
does apparently apply to Medicare supplemental plans. He opines that these may
be a useful doorway into Medicare coverage for professions that are not
presently included. Second, he notes that HHS says it was compelled to re-think
its position by the "breadth of issues" raised. This appeared to affirm the
influence of IHPC which had generated significant
outcry in a thorough survey and response in its comment period
campaign. Finally, Traub notes that, with the correction, "the
problematic statements in the 2013 FAQ have all been superseded by the new FAQ
and effectively removed." He adds: "In my opinion, this means that insurers no
longer have any basis to claim they can exclude certain licensed provider types
from their networks, nor use ‘market considerations' etc.. for varying
reimbursements. This is a victory. This is primarily what we asked the
departments to do in our responses to the RFI."

Comment: Some observers
view the 2015 FAQ as a sort of one step forward following the one step backward
of the 2013 FAQ. The result, in this view: we are only where we were had HHS
never spoken up. With the kind of organizing and lobbying from IHPC, AANP and
the ACA, this is worth a brief sigh of victory, or at least relief that the cloud
of the erroneous 2013 FAQ has lifted. Notably, this was accomplished post the
retirement of integrative health and medicine's former Congressional protector,
Senator Tom Harkin. Good sign of work getting done without Daddy Big Bucks -
the former Senate Appropriations chair for HHS matters.

One
side note: too bad that the ACA felt the need to claim the victory as entirely
its own doing. That's neither aligned with what ACA knows to be the case, nor
the spirit of integration that Section 2706, implemented, can foster. Let's
celebrate the group effort - then go forward with this tool for greater
enforcement!

North
Dakota Becomes 45th State to Regulate Acupuncturists

A notice in the newsletter of the National Certification Commission for
Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine highlighted the work of "a small group of
acupuncturists" in North Dakota that led the legislature to pass and Governor
Jack Dalrymple to sign a law to regulate acupuncture in the state. The NCCAOM
article states: "One of the members of the above group, Steve Spader,
Dipl. Ac. (NCCAOM)® who, along with others, worked tirelessly on the
passage of this legislation stated, ‘Though there have been attempts in the
past to introduce a practice act, this time we were blessed with guidance from Beth Allen, ND
and other experienced people both locally and nationally.'"

Comment: Fascinating to see the interprofessionalism
here. Allen is a naturopathic doctor in a state that only recently licensed her
field. Great model of collaboration! Nice to see the LAcs hit 90% on the way to
50 state regulation.

Advance for Certified Professional Midwives

Maryland Becomes 29th State to Regulate
Direct-Entry Midwives

Colleague Nichole Reding, MA,
CPM from the Birthingway College of Midwifery shares the news that Maryland has become the 29th state to regulate the practice of
direct-entry, homebirth-oriented midwifery as practiced by Certified
Professional Midwives. The release points toward future work: "However, Maryland still
has work to do to ensure safety and access for all women and families during
the birthing process. Out-of-hospital birth is still not covered by most
medical insurance plans and remains too costly for many who desire this kind of
care. Additionally, women desiring home births who have had previous cesareans
are barred from Certified Professional Midwife care under the new law."

The
peer-reviewed and indexed BMC Open
has published "Estimated Effects
of Whole-system Naturopathic Medicine in Select Chronic Disease Conditions: A
Systematic Review."
The 8-person research team, led by Erica Oberg, ND,
MPH
and Ryan Bradley, ND,
MPH, found fifteen studies that met a set of inclusion criteria that
included focusing on "chronic diseases of public health significance." These studies
"were of good quality and had low to medium risk of bias." In general the "effect
sizes (Cohen's d) for the primary medical outcomes varied and were
statistically significant (p<0.05) in 10 out of 13 studies." In each of
these randomized controlled trials with a medium effect size "a quality of life
metric was included and found statistical significance in some subscales." The
conclusion: "Previous reports about the lack of evidence or benefit of naturopathic
medicine are inaccurate." They add: "A small but compelling body of research
exists. Further investigation is warranted into the effectiveness of whole
practice NM for a range of health conditions."

Comment: The conclusion
reminds me of the statement of RAND researcher Patricia Herman, PhD, ND on
completing her exhaustive
cost-effectiveness study of complementary and integrative medicine: "I'm
tired of this talk that there is no evidence for cost-effectiveness of
complementary and integrative medicine. There is evidence. We need to move onto
phase two and look at how transferable these findings are. We can take this
evidence and run." Wallace Sampson, MD (see People, this Round-up issue) and his nattering nabobs
of negativity
aside, it's time for the rest of medicine "to take this evidence and run" about
the value in integrative, whole person, naturopathic care. "It's time

Calabrese: the godfather of ND whole practice research

Unfortunately
for the naturopathic profession, one of the rules by which research proposals
to the NIH are gauged is the breadth of the usefulness of the outcomes. Any
proposal by NDs can be flushed away due to the small size of their profession
(5,000). Reviewers need to respect the model they provide for all care relative
to integrative treatment. That needs to change. Kudos to the team. Someone in
the MD integrative medicine field needs to undertake a similar piece that surveys
for the still limited number of whole practice studies for the broader IM
field.

Finally,
kudos to Carlo Calabrese,
ND, MPH,
one of the authors, and a former member of the advisory council to the NIH
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine. Calabrese, the
founding executive director of the Naturopathic
Physicians Research Institute where he still sits on the board with
Oberg, Bradley (and this writer), is the godfather of outcomes, whole practice
and whole systems efforts to research the
way we practice for the naturopathic profession. He has also been a key
mentor and influencer of many, including me, for over 25 years. Nice work
Carlo!

"To Pause and
Protect" - Mindful Police Work Featured at Oregon Collaborative for Integrative
Medicine SPARC Research Conference

Unusual content at research meeting

A
notice from the Oregon
Collaborative for Integrative Medicine promoting their June 12, 2015 SPARC Conference included some
unusual fare. In a panel on mindfulness that includes content on the
mindfulness in medical education, and more on mindfulness research via clinical
neuroscience, two additional panelists have this topic: "To Pause and Protect -
Mindfulness Training in Law Enforcement." The presenters include Lt. Richard
Goerling, MBA, of the Hillsborough Police Department.

Comment: Given the high
visibility of the need for mindfulness in the behavior of municipal police
across the U.S., perhaps one way for integrative medicine and health to make
its name is to be a bit opportunist here. Why not adopt the police departments
in your own town or cities to offer courses and programs? With the growing
awareness of the fact that non-clinical
factors are the most significant contributors to health of communities, sharing
mindfulness strategies and building skills with your local police may be a
relatively efficient was to impact the health of communities.

The co-founder of Casey Health Institute (CHI), David Fogel, MD, recently shared with the Integrator that the Gaithersburg, Maryland-based
integrative center has now "met almost all of the criteria for a Level 3 PCMH." By the fall of 2015 the
Center will employ four primary care integrative medical doctors, one nurse
practitioners, two licensed acupuncturists, one naturopathic doctor, [two
psychologists ("we do a lot of mindfulness, and mind-body work"), a full time
Reiki master/massage therapist, a full-time Yoga therapist, a full-time
nutritionist, and a full time nurse care coordinator.

In addition, the not-for-profit 501c3 health center has "just signed
up to become part of a Medicare ACO" (Accountable Care Organization). In the
ACO, CHI will join with 5 other non-integrative primary care practices. Adds
Fogel: "We're spending enormous time and effort to get highly-coordinated
processes down to operationalize true collaborative, integrative health."

"I think a lot of integrative
practitioners are focused on proving that each individual modality is valid.
The power in integrative medicine is team-based collaboration. I think we will
blow values-based metrics out of the water with our outcomes using a team-based
staff model of care."

David Fogel, MDCasey Health Institute

Fogel believes that following this strategy will lead to
a quantum leap in evidence to support integrative care: "I think a lot of integrative
practitioners are focused on proving that each individual modality is valid.
The power in integrative medicine is team-based collaboration. I think we will
blow values-based metrics out of the water with our outcomes using a team-based
staff model of care." One hold-up in CHI in proving integrative health's value in
the context of outcomes-oriented PCMH's and ACOs has been the quality of
electronic health records as a collaborative tool. Recalls Fogel: "Our first
EHR (Electronic Health Record) was a disaster. It set us back almost a year in
many ways."

The Center is, as Fogel asserts, "one of the few IH
settings that accepts all major insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and charity
care." He notes that CHI has "a charity care policy that is based on federal
poverty guidelines and includes all modalities." As a result, he says, "the
clinic has a bi-model population with some patients very familiar with
integrative medicine and others with no knowledge of anything integrative and we
are teaching about integrative health from square one."

Attracting patients never has been an issue says Fogel:
"We have gone from zero to 3000 patients in two years. The challenge has been
how to handle the demand: front desk, telephone, electronic health record, and
creating high-functioning teams." Fogel, who with his spouse Ilana
Bar-Levav, MD, CHI's FIRST COO, spent a great
deal of time researching the national landscape for models prior to developing
CHI, observes: "The majority of people in integrative medicine appeared to
place little emphasis on the power of marrying team-based integrative
collaboration and population health strategies."

Fogel's assumption and assertion is spot on: the best way
for integrative care to make a quantum advance in the evidence game is to
bypass the proof of individual modalities and go straight to the real world
competition between PCMHs on accepted quality measures. There is evidence from a late 2014 PIHTA survey that that the business of medicine's move to values-based
care from a production-based medical industry is creating more alignment with
the patient-centered, functional outcomes interest in integrative centers.
Here's looking forward to CHI's report(s) of the outcomes. Meantime, in the
upcoming July 2015 Round-up: how "speed-dating" is serving
CHI's effort to create high performing teams. Stay tuned!

Quick
Links to Integrative Medicine News in Medical Systems and Communities: May 2015

This
typically monthlyIntegrator feature
is, for May 2015,
a quick capture of highlights from the stories that flow in daily from various
sources relative to "integrative medicine." A couple of significant
themes and events from May are the Tracy Gaudet-Bernie Sanders chat about
integrative VA care, an interesting reference to a Joint Commission note on
dietary supplements, the new website for the new ACIMH a.k.a. "The
Consortium," a new clinic for the Weil/U Az program, an intriguing John
Templeton Foundation grant to better arm chaplains for work in the
evidence-based medicine (EBM) environment. (Note that Global News Links are now
posted at The Global
Integrator Blog
for Global Advances in Health and Medicine - see related notice
here.)

Integrative
Academics

Clinical partnership with group for VA services

University of
Western States in Partnership with Veteran's Group for Chiropractic, Functional
Medicine and Massage Services

In a media release, the Portland, Oregon-based University of Western States
has announced that its new center of excellence, the Northwest
Center for Lifestyle and Functional Medicine (NWCLFM), is partnering with the Returning Veterans Project. Via the alliance, "post 9/11 war-zone veterans are
eligible to receive (free) chiropractic care and therapeutic massages at one of
the university's outpatient clinics located on the UWS campus." The NWCLFM will
provide up to 28 hours of therapeutic services per week to veterans, "making it
the largest provider of health services in the Returning Veterans Project network."
Belle Landau, executive director of Returning Veterans Project is quoted as
saying: "What we have found is that through services like massage and
chiropractic care, vets get the help they need to get off their pain meds, stay
in school, stay in their jobs, and hopefully become more open to counseling."

Comment: Great to see these partnerships
forming in the community. Interesting, also, to see the "functional medicine"
branding in this predominantly chiropractic institute. UWS president Joe
Brimhall, DC comes from a quite broad-scope clinical chiropractic background
and is a leader in driving segments of that profession in that direction.

Puerto Rico's
University of Turabo the 8th Naturopathic Program to Gain Federal
Recognition

UTurabo Puerto Rico the 8th ND program to gain recognition

A small program in naturopathic medicine at the University
of Turabo in Caguas, Puerto Rico has gained
status as a candidate for accreditation with the Council on Naturopathic Medical Education (CNME). The news reached the Integrator
via Michael Cronin, ND. The small program, founded by Efrain Rodriguez, ND
and presently led by Milva Vega Garcia, ND, presently has 40-50 current
students. It has been in a process toward candidacy for 3-4 years. The island,
a colony of the United States, has a limited licensing statute for naturopathic
doctors. Candidacy status gives students the ability to access federally
guaranteed students loans. In addition, in Puerto Rico, the school's
achievement of recognition was needed before any of its graduates could sit for
licensing.

Comment: In 1987, there were just 2 U.S. ND programs with CNME
recognition and that the option of membership in what would become the Association of Accredited Naturopathic Medical Colleges. The Caguas program has great potential. It may draw
Spanish speaking students from throughout South America, and even Spain, thus
stimulating the global reach of that profession. The Turabo program is also
likely to eventually draw Hispanic students from the United States who would
prefer to learn naturopathic medicine in Spanish, or at least the Puerto Rican
Spanglish. As a recent Puerto Rico resident (2012-2015), I can attest to the
need for quality, life-style-oriented doctors. The jurisdiction has higher
obesity and diabetes rates than even the states of the Deep South.

Midwifery
Education Accreditation Council Seeks Executive Director

The accrediting agency for education of direct-entry, Certified
Professional Midwives, is seeking a new executive director. The position is described here. A
small taste of the organization's work and direction is available through this
link to the Association of
Midwifery Educators' webinar entitled "Leveraging
Competency-Based Education and Direct Assessment to Advance Midwifery Education."

Organization
and Professions

Ryan Cliche, MBA,
FAE Named Executive Director of the American Association of Naturopathic
Physicians

Cliche: new AANP exec

Veteran
professional association director Ryan Cliché, MBA,
CAE
has been named the new executive director at the American Association of
Naturopathic Physicians (AANP). The notice from the
AANP
shares positions Cliché has held with organizations such as the American
Institute of Cancer Research, the Endocrine Society, the American Society of
Hematology, the American Society for Nutrition, and others. Perhaps hopefully,
AANP notes that he score a $5.2-million grant for the latter. His bio features
his role as a "rainmaker." His Linked-In profile is here. A blog post is here.

Comment: As a person who
held that role for the AANP from 1989-1993 I say: good luck with a fascinating,
potent, small and often challenging profession about which the RAND consultant
and RAND-Samueli chair in integrative medicine Ian Coulter, PhD once said,
"fights above its weight class."

AAAOM Creates Three New Committees in
Additional Priority Areas

Adding priorities

In
a June 2, 2015 message to members, the Board of Directors of the American Association for Acupuncture and Oriental
Medicine (AAAOM)
announced new priorities with the formation of these new committees and their
respective chairs: Acupuncture Science
& Research Committee (Jacob Godwin, DAOM, LAc) to "develop
evidence-based acupuncture documents, including health technology assessments
and clinical practice guidelines;" Practice
Management Committee (Jamie Davis, LAc) to "provide
resources and tools to help licensed acupuncturists run a successful practice,
including resources to assist acupuncturists with patient education, community
and inter-professional outreach, and maintenance of a profitable practice;" and
Inter-Professional Practice Committee
(Amanda Gaitaud,
LAc)
to "provide resources to improve patient-centered care through inter-professional
collaboration" including professional standards in AOM practice. Godwin is also
AAAOM's newly elected vice president. The full AAAOM committee list is here.

F4CP and the IAYT/Yoga
Therapy Version of Five Stages of Professional Development

Yoga therapy org hits new stage in maturation

A recent note from the executive director of the International
Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT) John Kepner spoke to a planned
presentation he was planning for a gathering of Yoga therapists where he'd be
speaking on that field's maturation. The proximal cause of our dialogue was yet
another in a
remarkable series print advertisement in the Wall Street Journal for chiropractic from the Foundation
for Chiropractic Progress. Says Kepner: "Indeed I am going
to show this ad at our meeting of schools, for the 5th stage of our
standards process: 1) bringing the field together and gaining agreements on
direction and financing; 2) education standards; 3) accreditation; 4) certification,
and now, 5) promoting the ‘demand' for yoga therapists." Kepner adds that "all
the first steps were focused on creating the supply" with the fifth on
expanding demand.

Chiro ground: an enviable PR effort

Comment: Love the move
here, from internal to outside. Follows a recommendation from one of the great
educators of our day, Bob Dylan: "Gonna know my song well/before I start
singing." As I have repeatedly suggested in the Integrator, anyone working to strengthen any profession,
integrative health and medicine or not, should be required to go to school on
the "how and why" and tremendous reach of the F4CP campaign. Check out the ads here. Read ‘em
and weep,
for what your profession or organization is
not doing.

Integrator's John
Weeks Steps Down from ACCAHC Executive Directorship after 8.5 Years

Weeks: stepping down after 8.5 years at

In a June 2015 media release from the Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative
Health Care (ACCAHC) on the transition of
executive director John Weeks, chair Elizabeth A. Goldblatt, PhD, MPA/HA,
states: "John's work has been extraordinary. He's built bridges with
multiple national organizations, federal agencies and academic institutions. He
is the most prolific and productive person I have ever met. Through his work
we've been able to make some remarkable strides." The work is detailed in this Chronology
of Accomplishment. Noted, for instance, are impact on 3 Institute of
Medicine processes, significant advances in widening the circle in the
interprofessionalism and team care movement to include integrative health and
medicine disciplines, publication of numerous texts and white papers, and a
six-fold increase in revenues through philanthropic partnerships.

Weeks
started the position in January 2007 on a 30 hour/month interim retainer. He helped
grow ACCAHC to an organization with over 65 member organizations: 18 national organization members, 40 academic organization members and assorted associated members. Revenues from membership were typically multiplied
five-fold through philanthropic partnerships. In the recent years, Weeks was
working three-quarter time with the organization. He will continue to be
involved in one or more ACCAHC projects while expanding his writing and
reporting and also "opening the windows to what else might be next." In May 2015, ACCAHC participated with two
other consortia and others to present Weeks, who has over three decades in the
field, with a Lifetime
Achievement Living Tribute award.

Global Advances: one base for Weeks' ongoing work

Comment: With my long-time, intimate
relationship with the subject matter here, I can say for certain that a change
is in order. Because two prior jobs in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which
I'd helped grow ideas into organizations had become challenging events in staff
management, I'd sworn off directing anything ever again before consenting to
take the ACCAHC retainer on a 6 month interim. I'm proud, personally, of having
helped develop and work with a terrific staff and a network of over 100 highly
skilled volunteers. Teamwork with Elizabeth A. Goldblatt, PhD,
MPA/HA ACCAHC's board chair for most of this time, was a noteworthy part of
our successes.

Next
up? Some focus for the first time in years on ways The Integrator might better serve. Got any ideas? More work,
certainly, with the leaders and exciting mission of Global Advances in Health and Medicine
Journal and my Global Integrator Blog on that site. Perhaps some time
to actually think, again, after
recent years of often overwhelming organizing activity. Perhaps something on
the ground in Seattle when my spouse and I return, also this month, after 3
years in Puerto Rico. The relative quiet of the beach and island life has been
a great stress modifier. Mainly what comes next is a little time to breathe,
and think on the future with this chunk of responsibility lifted. It was a good
run with a lot of great souls!

In an aptly titled June 1, 2015 media release, "The
Bravewell Collaborative Leaves a Legacy of Transforming Healthcare," these
influential philanthropists in integrative medicine officially announced that
they will sunset their operations in June 2015. The direction was previously
announced at its final awards dinner in November 2013. The media release links
to an extraordinary set of accomplishments through the $30-million of
investment over the 14 years of the organization's run. The Bravewell website will remain open until 2020.
A book about the collaborative is planned for 2016.

Comment: I have had a mixed relationship with this
group over the course of this run. The strategic decisions and successes have
been phenomenal. See this Huffington Post piece, for instance on the occasion
of the 2013 announcement: Honoring
How Powerful Consumers Known as Bravewell Implanted Integrative Medicine in the
System. At the same time, the strategic and perhaps cultural-economic
decision of these philanthropists to focus its $30-million on the integrative
MD community was a chronic set-back for interprofessionalism in integrative
health, a dulling of the vital force of a fully integrated "integrative
medicine." Amidst their good, they had a cooling effect on relationships
between the IHM professions.

One of multiple exceptional products

I
confess to a conflict of interest in the level-headedness in my reporting on
this topic. As an executive director of a consortium of the academics in the
so-called "CAM" professions, Academic Consortium
for Complementary and Alternative Health Care during half or Bravewell's
run, I was quite frustrated that the philanthropists did not share the view
that the future of integrative medicine and health would best be advanced by
lifting all boats. Quite the contrary: "CAM" seemed to be viewed as little more
than a sea-anchor, holding back their progress. This was despite the fact that
most of the integrative services in the US are delivered by one of the 375,000
licensed "CAM" professionals. The annual contributions and special grants of
Bravewell to the 61 medical school organization in what is now the Academic Consortium for Integrative Medicine and
Health were huge in that organization's founding, maturation, research
meeting, visibility and impact. They weren't interested in investing in the
maturation processes of the nation's chiropractors, acupuncturists,
naturopathic doctors and etc.

Okay,
I was jealous! Envious of my neighbor!Smitten with deadly sins. Bottom
line: Bravewell's contributions have been inestimable. Where would be without
them? We all owe these powerful women - the demographic was largely females
50-70- significant gratitude for their strategic choices that have leveraged
change in medicine and health in the U.S. Thank you!

A
Case of Ethical Relativity: Australian Natural Products Giant Blackmores
Funds $1.3-million Chair in Integrative Medicine at University of Sydney

Meantime,
Australian antagonists to the role of alternative therapies in their country,
where 4 out of 5 people use them, continue to question the practices while providing short
lists
of some with evidence and others without. The Dean of the University of Sydney
medical school, Bruce Robinson, MD and the firm's CEO Marcus Blackmore talk about the
grant here.

Approached
by the Integrator for a comment,
Australian integrative health and medicine leader Jon Wardle, ND, MPH
commented: "What is often lost in the controversy around this
development is that the Sydney School of Medicine approached the Blackmores
Institute, rather than another way around. This is a story about one of
Australia's pre-eminent medical schools seeing the need and wanting to get
further involved in integrative medicine, not a story about industry wanting to
direct a medical school one way or the other."

Comment: Is it defensible
to argue against big pharma's corruption of medicine through its octopusian reaches into every organization
and organ system in medicine while also arguing in support of this Blackmores'
grant or others from the natural products industry? I believe it is. At this
point in history, regular pharma controls not only where its own funding goes
but substantially influences the governmental and foundation granting networks.
Bluntly put: research on pharma is over-supplied and out of balance for the
health and medicine system. Plugging some spigots would do us all good.

Meantime,
little research money goes to natural health care or natural products research,
except when it comes to exploration of synthesizing herbs as pharmaceuticals.
Natural products and natural health care of all kinds need a great deal more
research. Circumstances require that we stimulate the kind of investment that
Blackmores has made. As the 2010 Lancet Report argues, the
health professional of the future needs comfort with ambiguity. Good for
Blackmores. Good for Dean Robinson!

International

The Global Integrator Blog Round-up from Global Advances in Health and
Medicine: May
2015

I
recently had the opportunity to visit Peru to attend the wedding of my nephew,
the sculptor Ishmael Randall
Weeks,
and his spouse Ale Arrarte, a devotee of natural childbirth and natural
medicine. Ale sends news that she is helping promote a two-week Gaura Workshop: Traditional
Midwifery and Holistic Medicine, taught by midwife and herbalist, Leonie
Lange, originally from Germany. The intensive course will be held in the Sacred
Valley of the Inca, in Urubamba where Lange is based, November 5-20, 2015.
Arrarte says the workshop "will cover a range of woman and pregnancy-related
things - diagnostic techniques,
emergency procedures, herbalism, homeopathy, feminine medicine, children's
medicine, traditional Peruvian customs" in child-bearing, and more.

The
workshop, says Arrarte, "will be given in English, and is open to midwives,
doulas, nurses, technicians, doctors, mothers, and any woman who finds it all
interesting!" Information is available through this Facebook page. Testimonials
include one from a faculty member at one of the accredited programs for
direct-entry midwifery in the United States, the Birthingway
School in Portland, Oregon. The cost is $1200, which includes materials,
lodging, and three vegetarian meals a day for the 15 days.

Comment: If you have not
been to the Sacred Valley, use this as your excuse! I have been blessed to have
had a sister, Wendy Weeks, who settled there in 1975 in those Donde No Hay Doktor years when she
birthed, with the assistance of local midwives, Ishmael and her other son,
Joaquin, in their home, the first back-packer hotel in those parts. Under
Wendy's and then Joaquin's management, El Albergue Hotel in Ollantaytambo, 10k from
Urubamba, has become a different sort of place. Every room now has running
water and bathrooms. There is a fine restaurant, an organic farm that feeds it,
and a deep integration with the local town that retains its pre-colonial feel,
and for which Joaquin presently serves as director of economic development and
tourism. I am being the familial agent for Ale and Ollanta here! Fine people,
if I do say so myself. Treat yourself!

People

Robert Rountree,
MD is the 2015 Linus Pauling Award Recipient from IFM

Rountree: deservedly honored

The
Institute for Functional Medicine has named integrative and
environmental medicine leader Robert Rountree, MD as the 2015 recipient of the
Linus Pauling Award. Rountree is credited with having "furthered the shift in
medicine from an organ system paradigm to a systems-medicine approach and has
helped to evolve Functional Medicine's clinical and patient-driven approach for
prevention and comprehensive treatment of chronic, complex disease." Rountree,
an author are keynote speaker, works out of a new practice, Boulder Wellcare.

Comment: Rountree's
powerful keynote on environmental influences at the 2015 Integrative Healthcare Symposium was reason
enough, for me, that he should earn this award. He's clearly been a very
significant influencer for the increasingly influential IFM model.

In
a May 15, 2015 notice to the Maryland University
of Integrative Health (MUIH) community, MUIH president Frank Vitale shared
"with tremendous respect and admiration" the news that Robert Duggan and
Dianne Connelly,are retiring their relationship with MUIH.
The two co-founded what has become MUIH as the Tai Sophia Institute. Vitale was
not overstating when he credited the two for being "bold trailblazers in the
field of natural medicine." In 1970 the two acupuncturists established one of
the first acupuncture clinics in the U.S., and in 1985 the first accredited
Master of Acupuncture program. At the Institute, they also founded the SOPHIA
programs, a Master of Science in Herbal Medicine, Master of Arts in Applied
Healing Arts. These laid the foundation of the transition of the Tai Sophia
Institute into the present, regionally accredited, Maryland University of
Integrative Health.

Duggan's recent book

Comment: Duggan, in
particular, is one of the great influencers in the AOM field. A former Catholic
seminarian who was on the cover of Time
magazine back in the 1960s when he left the fold to marry Connelly, Duggan was and
remains an avid student of another former priest, the author and "maveric social critic" Ivan Illich. Duggan called
the institution he and Connelly co-founded an "Academic Wellness Institute"
before wellness reached its recent prominence. For a time, he was one of the
few people in any of the integrative health and medicine field who could always
be counted on to pull the dialogue back to a focus on health when it tended to
stray and devolve into the dominant disease paradigm. He would exasperate his AOM colleagues who
were busy trying to establish professional legitimacy for their profession by
announcing that the profession would be better off were it licensed through
Parks and Recreation, to keep the focus on health.

I
have been at times among the exasperated. We first met in 1996 when he was a
discussant for a paper I
presented
at a small meeting of the NIH and the AHRQ on the coverage issues for
complementary medicine. He didn't much like the engagement with insurers. His
concern for the corrupting, professional aggrandizement of most guilds led him
to discount as a misdirected initiative my own strategic work in building the
Academic Consortium for Complementary and Alternative Health Care as a power
base for transformation toward integrative health and medicine. He never
allowed his Institute to join while he was president. Yet I always remain soft
for his radicalism. We do too often stray from our mission and roots. My guess
is we'll be hearing more from Duggan, and Connelly. Thanks for all you have
given, and all you have shaped through your powerfully held views.

Bastyr University Names Charles
"Mac" Powell as New President

Bastyr
University, among the most significant academic players in the evolution in
integrative health and medicine, has named a new
president
to succeed Daniel Church, PhD. Charles "Mac" Powell is the former president of
John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California. He received his B.A.
in sociology/philosophy, M.A. in clinical psychology and Ph.D. in sociology
from the University of Missouri. Powell also holds
additional degrees from National University in San Diego, CA and Antioch
University in Marina Del Rey, CA.
He is author of books on marriage and family therapy, and on golf.

Comment: An interesting
choice, from outside the mainstream of academia, both in his own education and
his recent position. Here's hoping he will be a good fit in the peculiar
culture of Bastyr and the dominant naturopathic medical profession that was
described so candidly by Church is his exit interview with Natural Medicine Journal. We can all
expect an increasing in golfing metaphors as applied to natural health.

CAM Critic Wallace
Sampson, MD, Dies

CAM antagonist Sampson

Stanford
professor Wallace Sampson, MD, an early and vociferous antagonist to any
exploration whatsoever into anything complementary and integrative has died at
age 85. According to this obituary in
the San Jose Mercury,
Wallace spent his retirement years "educating about evidence-based medicine."
He helped publish The Scientific Review
of Alternative Medicine through which he served as a mentor to Steven
Novella, a principal at the polarizing ScienceBasedMedicine.com (referred to in
the Integrator as "polarization-based
medicine"). Novella writes about his mentee
relationship with Sampson here.

Comment: When I was a
relatively young pup working for a populist candidate for the Port of Seattle
in 1981, word came out that our opponent, who happened to be a business
associate of my father, had taken ill. An elected official and close colleague
of the candidate for whom I worked shocked me when he unforgettably responded
to the news of the illness with this: "Guys like that - they're better off
dead."

Mean
as this may sound, it captures in microcosm a favored saying of the feel-good,
integrative medicine movement: paradigms
shift when the old finally die. Alas, not so easy: Sampson appears to have
seeded a new generation, more vociferously polarizing than his own.